I was wondering, does the Hans' Granate Werfer ignore cover? I mean, it's a grenade launcher, essentially no different from Joe's, which the rulebbok says ignore cover.

And am I the only one a little pissed at the disparity between the two Revised Set light walkers? The Blackhawk seems like a piece of crap next to the Hans, and with only a 2AP points difference. They seem to have about the same combined firepower,however the Hans has a distinct advantage with the one-hit walker kill Panzerfaust Werfer which can even seriously damage a heavy walker (1/6 !!!), and in case the Granate Werfer does ignore cover that's a huge bonus. It's also a big difference that, while the Blackhawk has a good all-around weapon, the Hans has two weapons, which allows it to simultaneously attack quite competently both a squad and a walker. The Hans also has better range, with the difference between 2 and 3 being quite a strong one. The Blackhawk's All In One skill doesn't quite make up for it, as it's a one-use thing, unlike something like Burst Weapon. Finishing it off, the Blackhawk's Fast is just slightly better than Hans' Scout skill, and in some cases Scout could be even more useful. The balance between these units is completely off.

Well Fast pretty much makes up for 1 less range as the combined move and weapon range both equal 4. Fast is a ruddy good ability useable every turn.

Our light walkers rarely last more than 1 turn of shooting so a one-use skill is no problem at all and highly effective. I keep persevering with Hans as on paper it looks like a good effective walker, but fails miserably every time, its to slow for a short-range arsenal and gets blown up before it can fire every time.

And on the soft cover note, I thought Hans would ignore it to, but the rules don't say that

I am 100% agreement with you... The Axis definitely took the edge on the Revised Core Set. Burst weapons, Hans, Lara, Laser Grenadiers that do 3 x 1/3 on heavy mechs. Hell Boys and Hammers/Rhino kick ass, but the Blackhawk and Death Dealers are pretty much worthless especially for their point values. And yeah, the whole Hans has 2 weapons and Blackhawk has 1 weapon thing with a range of 2 is upsetting as an Allied player. Though I am sure that when Operation Cerberus arrives and things take more of a confined city feel to the combat zones these could prove to be more effective. I have ranted about this on my blog , so I won't start ranting again. ha ha ha ha.

I would agree that the lack of clarification on the Granate Werfer is very weak. I wouldn't be surprised to see another FAQ soon declaring that it should be considered a grenade weapon. It would be nice to see that for "The Chef" too... The only hero released to date with no skill. Yeah the dual flames are cool and are a special weapon , but something like Assault, or maybe finally see the Fighting Spirit Skill come into play for the actual skill of the Hero. Something other than nothing basically. It seems things are a little lacking between the Walkers of the Revised Core and the Allied Hero of Operation Cerberus (Looking at the unit card, Angela looks to be pretty effective though only combat testing will tell, which I look forward to )

Yeah, it does seem like the allies got the short end of the stick in the Revised Set. And don't get me started on Lara. An armor 3 hero with Damage Resilient that can attack two light squads simultaneously doing a combined damage of 10/1, for a measly 21 points?!! Come on.

Loophole Master said:

True, but at the moment her usefulness is very limited as if she goes with the AA rocket guy's she can't sustain fire as they have to load and the heavy laser grenadiers are pretty rubbish. Things will change when the heavy recon are released though.

Major Mishap said:

She can't sustain fire every turn, but she still can sometimes, and even if the unit is reloading and firing, they can generate 28 attack dice against an Armor 2, or 18 against an Armor 3, unit that hasn't moved. That can generate more on average than many units using Sustained Attack. With Lara's Assault, they can move two spaces and do that if they're already loaded.

When they actually do get to pull off a Sustained Attack against stationary targets, it gets brutal. There's rarely much reason to do a Sustained Attack against a single stationary unit with all of that firepower.

The Heavy Recon Grenadiers will generate more than the Heavy Flak Grenadiers against moving targets, and also make a nice fit with Lara, but the threat she poses with the Flak Grenadiers can make up for the lower damage against moving targets, as it makes them move instead of use Sustained Attack themselves.

She works well with the Heavy Laser Grenadiers in a vehicle rich environment, where she maintains the unit's anti-infantry capability while they concentrate on enemy walkers. Three 1/1's against infantry aren't a major threat, but 13/1 or 9/1 vs Armor 2 or 3, while still generating the three 1/3's against vehicles isn't bad.

Speaking of flak grenadiers I don't think they will be particularly useful until Armor 4 infantry make an appearance but also keep in mind laser weapons are devastating on those lucky roles.

the heavy infantry's saving grace will always be Damage Resilence. Lara is best used with those Heavy Laer Grens unless you are just fighting an infantry army. played a 500 vs 500 point game today and lara survived the whole match much to my chagrin. she is a beast

Yeah, Lara tends to last quite long in our matches as well. She's a tough nut to crack, and I'm always wary of approaching her.

I sent a question to FFG about Hans' Grenate Werfer ignoring cover. Now we only have to wait a couple of months...

Loophole Master said:

With vehicles at least, they've been pretty consistent with listing the appropriate special weapon type on the card. (Phaser, laser, flame, etc.) Since they didn't put it on the Hans (and because it is already a beast), we play that it doesn't ignore cover.

Well, we have several examples of flame and grenade weapons that are supposed to ignore cover but have no special ability listed in the card (Stefan, Ozz, UGLs...).

Loophole Master said:

I did mention "with vehicles", and for simple balance purposes I'm fine not buffing up the Hans any further.

Yeah, I agree, the Hans doesn't need any extra help. I was just saying that it's quite possible that they forgot to write down the special ability in the card, and after all a "Granate Werfer" is nothing more than a "grenade launcher", and those are supposed to ignore cover, according to the rules.

Loophole Master said:

No arguement here. In the name of playability, I'm ignoring the fact that Granate Werfer is actually a grenade thrower. =)

Assume it's shaped charge grenades, so the blast effect is severely limited? The piat, bazooka, panzerfaust, etc. were all throwing explosives down range, but they were less effective against infantry because of design to maximize armor penetration. I could easily accept that as a rationale for not classing the weapon as a grenade that ignores cover.

Gimp said:

But the "Granate Werfer" is designed as an anti-infantry weapon (you can tell that by its stat line and being called a Grenade Launcher) and not anti-tank like the bazooka's, that is attached to his other arm!

On matches played doen here, the blackhawk has allways taken advantage of the hans...fast and killer all in one attack can get the job done much more than a 1 ide = kill, in my POV.

I´ll tke the blackhawk any day to a 130+match, but would never pick the hans unless it serves to a very specifcid purpose.

I agree on Lara being too cheap, but I think this has been talked about quite a lot around here, hasn´t it? Did some kind of answer from designer team came out?

Well, Hans just got officially more dangerous. Here's the answer I got from FFG:

When attacking soldier units, Hans' Granate Werfer is considered an "Incendiary Blast." This is the same type of damage as a Flamethrower and Under-Barrel Grenade Launcher. Both of those weapons ignore cover, therefore Han's Granate Werfer does as well (but only if it is attacking soldier units).

And there it is. Hans' Granate Werfer ignores cover .

Now... do I tell this to my axis opponent?....

PS: It's funny how they go out of their way to make it clear it only ignores cover againt soldiers, which is useless information since vehicles get no cover save. If only they were this careful and thorough in the actual rules...

Wow, that's a surprising answer.

Hans doesn't come out too often - he might come out more now that we know that. I'll have to add that info to my cheat sheet that I use. This game system needs a bit more quality control, for sure. FFG isn't exactly known for their clear and unambiguous rules, but Dust Tactics stands out compared to the rest in this regard. (I'm guessing it has something to do with the rules being a joint effort between FFG and Dust Studios.)

Not surprised really as it is a grenade weapon after all. I've used Hans several times now believing that on paper it is a really good buy, but has failed me every time as it gets blown up every time before it can get into range. The problem is purely because it does not have Fast like the Allied walkers with short range. It's to easy to get bounced by infantry which are more mobile by being able to cut corners around walls and get first shot in.

Major Mishap said:

I'm happy to hear it counts as a grenade launcher. It would have been strange not to count a grenade launcher as a grenade launcher.

I made my suggestion simply as something to give some rationale until we heard officially. I prefer to play with the more limiting option for units when there is doubt, because that means an improvement due to an official answer is a welcome addition, and a confirmation of lower capability does not change how the vehicle can be used. It's always more fun to have a unit's capabilities increased, as opposed to having to relearn how to deal with a nerf when the better option was more interesting.

They may have mentioned ignoring cover only against soldiers due to additional rules options in Warfare. Someone mentioned something about vehicles getting some cover benefits there.

Loophole Master said:

I have no problem with Hans Granate Werfer ignoring cover, but the answer is confusing. They should have said it is a grenade type weapon and therefore, ignores cover. But instead they say it is an "Incendiary Blast" weapon just like the Flamethrower and Under-Barrel Grenade launcher.

According to page 24 of the Revised Rule book, Incendiary Blast weapons are those that have number of dice followed by a cross. The following weapons are Incendiary Blast in addition to flamethrowers:

Petard Mortar

75mm Howitzer

Nebelwerfer 42

UGL is not a Incendiary Blast weapon.

So do all Incendiary Blast weapons ignore cover?

The way I've been interpreting things is: unless something about a weapon specifically states it ignores cover, it dose not ignore cover.

- Petard Mortar:nothing I can see
-75mm Howitzer:still nothing
-Nebelwerfer 42:artillary ignores cover

After going checking the revised core-set rules for Incendiary Blast: nothing about ignoring cover saves.

Incendiary Blast (X/+):
This combat value represents an incendiary explosion that ignites the target in flames. To apply this type of damage, roll “X” dice for each targeted miniature and inflict one point of damage for each [HIT] result.
Example: The Hell Boys target a squad of Sturmpioniere with a Flamethrower
against “Inf. 2,” the Flamethrower’s weapon line shows “1/+” There are five Axis
soldiers in the Sturmpioniere squad, so the Allied player rolls five dice. Each
[HIT] result causes one point of damage.

So my conclusion is that the official FAQ should state everything that ignores cover as there are weapons that are intended to ignore cover that are not immediately apparent to do so.

Hate to blog in an old post but this question came up today again on Facebook and we are looking for the official answer. I agree that there should be a comprehensive list of weapons that ignore cover.

Well, this is the only official word we have. Hans' Granate Werfer ignores cover. Unless a new FAQ comes out overruling this (it's happened before), that's the rule.